Until It Happens to You...

By
The Wilder Firm
|February 10, 2018

Dallas Police Officer Senior Corporal Adam Conway has undoubtedly arrested
numerous individuals for Driving While Intoxicated. But the 15-year veteran
of the Dallas Police Department has been on administrative leave since
last May when he got caught doing exactly that. Saturday, May 25th, Conway
took part in a funeral escort for former Dallas Firefighter Stanley Wilson
with other motorcycle units. Afterwards, he and the other officers stopped
for drinks at a bar. On the way home Conway got into a three-car accident
in Rockwall where Rockwall P.D. arrested him for suspicion of DWI.

According to the
Dallas Morning News, Conway admitted at the scene to drinking “like two beers”
after initially denying drinking at all. Eventually two became three,
and the officers at the scene reported that he had alcohol on his breath
and slurred his words. After he refused to submit to a blood draw voluntarily,
Rockwall P.D. secured a warrant and drew his blood. His BAC was recorded
to be .187–more than twice the legal limit and enough to elevate
the charge to a Class A misdemeanor. There is not much to say other than
hope seemed lost for Conway….

Or not. Earlier this week the Rockwall District Attorney’s Office
dropped the charges against Conway citing a “potential procedural
error with the blood test.” The article does not disclose what the
potential error was, but a few common errors come to mind. Warrants, for
example, signed by a magistrate judge from another country are invalid.
Or if police make an incorrect statement to a suspect about their rights
during the process of obtaining a warrant the warrant may be tainted.
Or the warrant could have omitted necessary facts and thus not met the
requirements of a valid warrant. Without more information, we can only
speculate as to what rendered Conway’s warrant invalid.

In Conway’s case, he may still face significant consequences for
his DWI charge. As of Wednesday, October 16th, Conway is still on administrative
leave from the Dallas Police Department, which is conducting its own investigation
to determine what took place last May. But for many, a botched warrant
or other procedural error is essentially a get out of jail free card.
If, for example, a judge determined that a search of a vehicle or home
was unconstitutional, then all evidence obtained as a result of that search
is inadmissible in court. It doesn’t matter if police find 100 tons
of cocaine in a trunk. If they didn’t have the right to look, the
evidence does not come in to court no matter how “guilty” you are.

This is a concept that non-lawyers often struggle with. Most people are
uncomfortable with individuals escaping punishment because of a police
error or other technicality. But this is an absolutely vital part of our
legal system and one of the (many) reasons why defense attorneys are so
important to securing YOUR rights. Imagine a world where police did not
have to follow rules, where police could arrest anyone and everyone for
whatever or no reason. Do you want to live in that world? Of course not.
But cops are humans and make mistakes, sometimes accidentally, sometimes
maliciously. If it weren’t for defense attorneys scouring over every
single police document or dash cam video, these errors would never be
found. Police would not self-report their mistakes, and prosecutors certainly
would not bring them to the judges attention voluntarily. That takes someone
whose soul job is to look after YOU.

I can imagine there a few things more embarrassing for a police officer
than committing a mistake that keeps evidence out of court. And I’m
sure once that happens the officer does not make the same mistake twice.
Good. We as citizens have the right to expect an exceptional level of
professionalism from our police officers. We have the right to expect
that they will respect our rights no matter who we are or what we allegedly
did. Rights are meaningless if they are discarded whenever convenient.
So rest assured that there are defense attorneys all over the country
keeping cops and prosecutors in check. And never forget that a world with
tyrannical cops is infinitely worse than a world where a few people get
off on technicalities.

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